Monday, November 26, 2012

I mentioned in my post Online Systems for Behavior Change that I'm working on a very interesting project that is designed to lead to some important changes in behavior that has already had dramatic impacts. But we want to do even better and so we are studying some parallel offerings and what they are doing relative to promoting specific behavior in their systems.

Ultimately, we are trying to design something that will motivate users to take action that we know will have positive impact. However, there's often this gap between what people know they should do and getting them to actually do it (and that's not just with online systems).

I'm reviewing: Khan Academy, Nike Training Club and SparkPeople. I've included lots of screen shots of what I'm seeing and some thoughts as I'm going through them. I'm not claiming this is scientific in any real way. Rather, I'm collecting some thoughts in terms of design concepts.

I would very much welcome feedback/comments on this:

What else have you seen or used that motivates action in online systems for behavior change?

What articles have you seen that talk about use of goals, badges, points, community, etc. for motivating user action?

Khan Academy

Nice walkthrough of your profile, but interestingly it didn't take me into it automatically.
Provides an interesting concept in terms of allowing users to earn points to be able to change their avatar. Similarly, it shows you holes where badges would go. Suggested activities with progress indicator and easy click to access. Shows recently completed activity and rewards earned.
Tons of Badges and explanation of the badges:
Nice statistics.
I will say that I found the content presentation to be fairly standard. It uses very familiar voice/language that makes it feel comfortable. But there wasn't anything that special or different about it.
Practice was also not all that different and generally was very simple. The system does have a good use of progress indicators. And it also has very simple, consistent format.
Each practice results in rewards and clear indication of how to move on. Uses longest streak, quick answers and total leaves (points).
Shows you how to use it in your classroom.
Teachers can setup students in the system so that they can get reports on their progress.
Can see stats easily on your class to determine how they are doing. As a teacher, this could be a great tool to help figure out where you might want to spend more time. The interface is really easy to understand.

Nike Training Club

This happens to be a program that my wife and daughter love. Its very easy to get into and start using. Choose your goal then your level. Then your workout.
You can see pictures and videos ahead of time or while you are doing it.
Don't forget to plan your music that goes along with the workout.
During the workout, it's easy to understand what's going on. There are voice commands that give you pointers and count down just like a trainer would.
There's a nice summary of your workout at the end.
You can automatically share your workout with friends.
The system really excels in terms of stats and rewards.

SparkPeople

Quick call to action to sign-up.
Step 1 - setting goals
Window expanded based on entered goals to see what your planned goals turned into. You can see the specific plan elements and easily change your goals on the same page.
Time to enter a bunch of preferences, its not clear how this impacts my experience. Even after using the system for a while, it wasn't clear to me. Likely it would have put me into additional teams (smaller forums - described below).
I'll be honest, its way too hard to use food trackers like this for me. In this case, I tried typing in what I had for breakfast and it didn't come up with a reasonable choice. What no normal Raisin Bran cereal. It took me a bunch of tries to find that I needed to type in the brand of cereal first. Entering the sandwich I made for lunch. Way too much work for me personally, but I understand the value.
Same interface for tracking fitness, but so much easier to enter because there are a LOT fewer items.
Periodically you get a pop-up or other calls to action around the points.
Ugly ad right in the middle:
I won 3 points:
I'm not sure I buy this aspect of points, but I do think they've done a great job using a menu of actions along with associated points that basically motivate you to do the things that will be good for you to do on the system. For example, posting in the forums earns you points. Tracking each food item earns you points. Maybe this would get me to be willing to spend the time on each item.
They also use this same approach to get you to try out additional features or refer other people.
SparkPeople makes heavy good use of streaks as a motivational tool. These tie back to points and basically help to motivate daily use. Of course, you get to cheat on most things by going back to previous days and entering values to keep your streaks alive.
Also can earn trophies, which I've been calling badges on other other sites. Like the other sites, its easy to see what badges are possible and to find out what it will take to earn additional badges. It's interesting to see that they use both badges and the central points mechanism. I wonder if this gets lost a little.
SparkPeople does a lot of things to get people to interact with other users. It starts with automated personal emails.
And lots of use of community. You can see they have teams, message boards, challenges, member tips, member pages, member blogs, member success stories, and featured items. You could easily spend a lot of time just in the community. It also could be a bit overwhelming for first time users. So, they have done some nice things to help first timers get started. This is key as most users do not jump in and start communicating.
Automatically add you into a few teams. For example, all the people who joined the same week I joined.
People somewhat automatically share aspects of what they are trying to achieve.

Design Aspects

There are some interesting common items between the systems.

Badges / Trophies are shown as gray until its filled in with color when you earn it. Each makes it clear what is required to earn the item.

Each system offers early rewards and it steps up in complexity from there.

Streaks are used in Khan and SparkPeople as additional incentives.

Nike and Khan have simple, clean interfaces and a fairly limited set of actions. The interfaces are very consistent.
Obviously, SparkPeople has somewhat thrown everything at the user, hasn't worried as much about the look of the interface, but has done a few things that stand out to me in terms of design:

Establish a clear goal around weight loss and possibly some other goals. It's interesting to me that setting a goal is not much of a part of Khan or Nike. In some ways, the broader efforts of Nike with Nike+ helps with longer term perspective. There's an implicit goal in Khan Academy in terms of completing content. Still there's something good about establishing a longer-term goal. Of course, then you need to break it down into smaller goals. That's something that SparkPeople does really well with Points.

Points as a central theme. The menu of actions that have points directly tied to them is a great idea. This is a good way to provide structured actions that tie back to the central motivational scheme. Khan also provides points as a motivator. Interesting, points don't really get me much in SparkPeople, but in Khan I can do simple things like changing my avatar.

Lots of community options and a good job drawing people into the community. Nike does a little of this with posting to your friends about your workout. Again, looking at Nike+ more broadly they are doing some interesting things around community. Still the Nike Training Club is somewhat isolated.

As always, please note that events, dates, titles, and locations may change; thus, CHECK the specific conference website. Note also that some events will be cancelled at a later date, such as those in Tunisia and Egypt in early 2011. All Internet addresses were verified at the time of publication. No liability is assumed for any errors that may have been introduced inadvertently during the assembly of this free conference list.

December 2012

November 29-December 1, 2012 International Vocational Education and Training Association (IVETA) Conference in conjunction with the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) Convention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. http://www.iveta.org/ or https://www.acteonline.org/

December 2-6, 2012 Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) and Asia Pacific Educational Research Association Conference, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia. http://www.aare.edu.au/live/

December 2-7, 2012 Executive Leadership Institute, sponsored by the League for Innovation in the Community College, Arizona Biltmore, Phoenix, Arizona, USA. http://www.league.org/eli/

December 7-10, 2012 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD) 6th, Cape Town, South Africa. http://ictd2012.org/ or search for updated URL

December 9-12, 2012 International Congress of Telemedicine and e-Health: Telemedicine and e-Health in Rebuilding Medical Systems in Developing Countries, sponsored by the Virtual e-Hospital Foundation, Prishtina, Kosovo. http://www.iveh.org/

December 13-14, 2012 Shaping the Future of ICT Research: Methods and Approaches, organized by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 8.2, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA. http://www.ifip82-2012.usf.edu/

January 3-5, 2013 College Teaching and Learning Conference, sponsored by the Clute Institute for Academic Research, Maui, Hawaii, USA. http://www.cluteinstitute.com

January 3-6, 2013 National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology (NIToP), 35th, annual, co-sponsored by the Association for Psychological Science, University of Florida and the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, The TradeWinds Island Grand Hotel, St. Petersburg Beach, Florida, USA. http://nitop.org

January 7-10, 2013 Institute for the Development of Excellence in Assessment Leadership, organized by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), Tampa, Florida, USA. http://www.abet.org/ideal/

January 13-14, 2013 Technology, Knowledge and Society, 9th, international conference, Robson Square, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. http://techandsoc.com/conference-2013/

January 22-25, 2013 International Conference on Information Technology and Travel Tourism (ENTER), organized by the International Federation for Information Technology and Travel and Tourism (IFITT), 19th, Innsbruck, Austria. http://www.ifitt.org/congresses/website/enter2013/

January 23-25, 2013 Deans Conference, organized by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), San Antonio, Texas, USA. http://www.aacsb.edu/conferences/

January 23-26, 2013Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU): The Quality of U.S. Degrees – Innovations, Efficiencies and Disruptions to What Ends?, 98th annual meeting, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. http://www.aacu.org/meetings/index.cfm

January 26-30, 2013 International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare (IMSH), organized by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, Peabody Orlando Hotel, Orlando, Florida, USA. https://ssih.org/events/imsh-2013-central

January 30-February 1, 2013 International Conference on Education and Educational Technologies, 4th, organized by the North Atlantic University Union (NAUN), Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. http://naun.org/wseas/cms.action?id=2213

January 30-February 2, 2013 International Conference on Communications and Information Technology (CIT), organized by the North Atlantic University Union, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. http://www.naun.org/

January 31-February 2, 2013 Jon C. Dalton Institute on College Student Values: Character in an Age of Self-Promotion – Exploring the Role of Social Media on College Student Development, 23rd, annual, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA. http://www.studentvalues.fsu.edu/

February 2013

February 1-2, 2013 Facilities for 21st Century Education, organized by the Council of Educational Facility Planners (CEFPI), Blue Valley Center for Advance Professional Studies, Overland Park, Kansas, USA. http://www.cefpi.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=1

February 2-3, 2013 International Conference on Educational and Information Technology (ICEIT), 2nd, organized by the International Association of Computer Science and Information Technology (IACSIT) and the International Journal of Information and Education Technology (IJIET), Hong Kong, China. http://www.iceit.org/

February 13-15, 2013 International Conference on Web-based Education (WBE), organized by the International Association of Science and Technology for Development (IASTED), Innsbruck, Austria. http://www.iasted.org/conferences/cfp-792.html

February 17-18, 2013 Future Innovation Technology and Creativity (FITC): Design and Technology Conference – The Intersection of Design, Development and Technology, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. http://www.fitc.ca/ or www.felix.meritis.nl/

February 21-22, 2013 Personal Digital Archiving, organized by the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities, National Digital Information Infrastructure Programs and University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA. http://mith.umd.edu/pda2013/

February 21-23, 2013 WNRCASN Education for Leadership: Imagining the Possibilities, organized by the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. http://www.nursing.ualberta.ca/WNRCASN2013

February 23-26, 2013 Conference on the First-Year Experience, 32nd, annual, sponsored by the National Resource Center First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, co-hosted by Rollins College, Valencia College and University of Central Florida, Orlando, California, USA. http://www.sc.edu/fye/annual/index.html

February 15-17, 2012Assistive Technologies (AT), 2nd, sponsored by the International Association of Science and Technology for Development (IASTED), Innsbruck, Austria. http://www.iasted.org/conferences/

March 4-6, 2013 World Congress on Computing and Information Technology (WCIT) comprising International Conference on Digital Enterprises and Information (2nd), International Conference on e-Technologies and Networks for Development (2nd), International Conference on Cyber Security, Cyber Warfare and Digital Forensic (2nd), and International Conference on Green Computing, Technology and Innovation (1st), organized by the Asia Pacific University of Technology and Innovation, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. http://sdiwc.net/conferences/2013/wcit/

March 27-28, 2013 International Conference on Information Systems and Technology Management for Innovation and Regional Development (ISTMID), 5th, Middle East University, Amman, Jordan. http://aasrc.org/conference/?author=1

April 2-4, 2013 International Conference on Engineering and Technology Education, 1st, organized by World Scientific and Engineering Academy and Society (WSEAS), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. http://www.wseas.org/

April 9-May 11, 2013 Strategic Planning for Your First-Year Experience Course, organized by the National Resource Center First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina, USA, offered online. http://www.sc.edu/fye/events/index.html

April 10-12, 2013 Med-e-Tel: International eHealth, Telemedicine and Health ICT Forum for Education, Networking and Business, organized by the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth (ISfTeH), Luxembourg, http://www.medetel.eu/index.php

April 10-12, 2013 Advances in Computer Science and Engineering (ACSE), 8th, sponsored by the International Association of Science and Technology for Development (IASTED), Phuket, Thailand. http://www.iasted.org/conferences/

April 14-18, 2013 International Association of Scientific and Technological University Libraries (IATUL): Doing It Together – Effective Collaboration in Scientific and Technological University Libraries, Cape Town, South Africa. http://www.iatul.org/conferences/

April 16-18, 2013 Technology, Colleges, and Community (TCC) Worldwide Online Conference: Emerging Technologies for Learning – Best Choices and Current Practices, 18th, annual, to be held online. http://tcchawaii.org/ or http://tcc.kcc.hawaii.edu

April 17-19, 2013 Gulf Education and Training Exhibition (GETEX), including the Global EdTech Forum, Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre (DICEC), Dubai, United Arab Emirates. URL not available when this conference list was assembled, contact info@universityfairs.com

April 22-23, 2013 International Conference on Computer Games Multimedia and Allied Technology (CGAT), 6th, and Cloud Computing and Virtualization (CCV), Singapore. http://www.cgames.com.sg/

April 22-25, 2013 InternationalFederation of Training and Development Organisations (IFTDO) World Conference and Exhibition: Human Capacity Building for the Emerging World Order, 42nd, New Delhi, India. http://www.iftdo.net/

April 23-26, 2013 InternationalFederation of Training and Development Organisations (IFTDO) World Conference and Exhibition: Capability Building for Cutting Edge Organizations in New Business Order, 42nd, New Delhi, India. http://www.iftdo.net/

April 25-27, 2013 International Conference on New Trends in Education and Their Implications (ICONTE), 4th, Konyaalti-Antalya, Turkey. http://www.iconte.org/

April 25-27, 2013 What Is Radio? Exploring the Past, Present and Future of Radio Conference, sponsored by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Oregon, Portland, Oregon, USA. http://www.aejmc.org/home/events/regional-meetings/

May 1-3, 2013 Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) North Atlantic Regional Conference: Global, Local, or “Glocal” – Identity for Higher Education in an International Context, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. http://www.scup.org/

May 6-8, 2013 International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CESDU), 5th, sponsored by the Institute for Systems and Technologies of Information, Control and Communication (INSTICC) and co-organized by the Aachen University (RWTH), Aachen, Germany. http://www.csedu.org/

May 9-10, 2013 Riding the Wave of Change Conference: National Education and Technology Conference, sponsored by the Evergreen School Division, Lakeview Resort, Gimli, Manitoba, Canada. http://www.esd.mb.ca/wave/ or lroche@esd.mb.ca

May 21-June 22, 2013 Models and Methods of Student Advising, organized by the National Resource Center First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina, USA, offered online. http://www.sc.edu/fye/events/index.html

May 26-29, 2013 National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD) International Conference on Teaching and Leadership Excellence, 35th, annual, Austin, Texas, USA. http://www.nisod.org/conference/

May 27-29, 2013 Centre for English Language Communication Symposium (CELC): Alternative Pedagogies in the English Language and Communication Classroom, UTown, National University, Singapore. http://nus.edu.sg/celc/symposium/

May 27-31, 2013 Building the Scientific Mind (BtSM2013), Fifth Advanced International Colloquium: Science and Technology in the Service of Beauty and Harmony, organized by the Learning Development Institute, Bandung/Lembang, Jawa Barat, Indonesia. http://www.learndev.org/BtSM2013.html

May 28-31, 2013 International Association for Social Science Information Services and Technology (IASSIST) Conference, 39th annual, Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Cologne, Germany. http://www.iassistdata.org/conferences

May 29-31, 2013 International Conference on Research Challenges in Information Science, 7th, Sponsored by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Paris, France, http://rcis-conf.com/rcis2013/

May 14-16, 2012Communication, Internet, and Information Technology (CIIT 2012), 7th, organized by the International Association of Science and Technology for Development (IASTED), Baltimore, Maryland, USA. http://www.iasted.org/conferences/cfp-773.html

June 1-8, 2013 Congress 2013 of the Humanities and Social Sciences, sponsored by the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences (CFHSS), University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. http://www.fedcan.ca/en/congress

June 9-12, 2013 Learning College Summit: Student Success and Completion, organized by the League for Innovation, hosted by Maricopa County Community College District, Sheraton Wild Horse Pass, Chandler, Arizona, USA. http://www.league.org/ls2013/

June 9-12, 2013 National Institute for Early Childhood Professional Development (NAEYC), 22nd, San Francisco, California, USA. http://www.naeyc.org/institute/

June 11-15, 2013 Institute on High-Impact Practices and Student Success, organized by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU), University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA. http://www.aacu.org/meetings/SummerInstitutes.cfm

June 15-16, 2013 International Conference on Future Network Technologies, 5th, sponsored by the International Association of Computer Science and Information Technology, Colombo, Sri Lanka. http://www.icfn.org/cfp.htm

June 15-19, 2013 International Conference on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 10th, sponsored by the International Society of the Learning Sciences, Madison, Wisconsin, USA. http://www.isls.org/

June 16-19, 2013 Learning International Networks Consortium (LINC): Realizing the Dream – Education Becoming Available to All. Will the World Take Advantage?, 6th, annual, organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. http://linc.mit.edu/linc2013/default.htm

June 17-20, 2013 International Conference on the First-Year Experience, 26th, organized by the National Resource Center on The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, Big Island, Hawaii, USA. http://www.sc.edu/fye/ifye/index.html

June 17-20, 2013 International Conference on Information Society (i-Society), University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada. http://www.i-society.eu/

June 17-20, 2013 Canada International Conference on Education (CICE), University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada. http://www.ciceducation.org/

June 24-27, 2013 International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), 43rd, annual, sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), Budapest, Hungary. http://2013.dsn.org/

June 24-28, 2013 ED-MEDIA 2013: World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications, sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), hosted by the University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. http://aace.org/conf/

June 26-28, 2013 International Research Conference, 5th, sponsored by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) and the National Institute of Education (NIE), Singapore. http://www.iea.nl/irc-2013.html

June 4-8, 2012Global Learn Asia Pacific: Global Conference on Learning and Technology, sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education, Singapore. http://www.aace.org/conf/glearn/

June 6-8, 2012 National Institute on the Assessment of Adult Learning: Tradition and Innovation in a Competitive Environment, organized by Thomas Edison State College, Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA. http://www.tesc.edu/national-institute/

June 7-8, 2012, State University of New York (SUNY) Center for Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Conference: Moving from Me to We – Breaking Boundaries and Building Bridges with Globally Networked Learning Partnerships, 4th annual, SUNY Global Center, New York City, New York, USA. www.suny.edu/global/coil

June 13-14, 2012 Supported Online Learning for Students Using Technology for Information and Communication in Their Education (SOLSTICE) eLearning and Centre for Learning and Teaching Research (CLTR) Teaching and Learning Conference: Enhancing Learning, Teaching and Student Success, Edge Hill University, Lancashire, UK. http://ehu.ac.uk/sol2012

June 14-15, 2012 International e-Learning Conference: Smart Innovations in Education and Life Long Learning, organized by the Thailand Cyber University and the Office of the Higher Education Commission Thailand, Muang Thong Thani, Nonthaburi, Thailand. http://support.thaicyberu.go.th/iec2012/

June 18-20, 2012EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR): Higher Education’s Changing Landscape and the Promise of Analytics – New Challenges and Opportunities for IT, Boulder, Colorado, USA. http://www.educause.edu/ECAR12

June 18-20, 2012Learning Transfer Conference, organized by the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), Chicago, Illinois, USA. http://www.astd.org/Events.aspx

June 25-27, 2012Computers and Advanced Technology in Education (CATE), 15th, organized by the International Association of Science and Technology for Development (IASTED), Napoli, Italy. http://www.iasted.org/conferences/cfp-774.html

June 28-30, 2012 International Conference on Educational Reform in the 21st Century in Balkan Countries, 15th, organized by the Balkan Society for Pedagogy and Education and the University of South-east Europe Lumina, Bucharest, Romania. http://edureform.lumina.org/

July 10-14, 2013 Institute on Integrative Learning and the Departments, organized by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU), Portland State University, Portland, Washington, USA. http://www.aacu.org/meetings/SummerInstitutes.cfm

July 11-12, 2013 National Conference of Academic Deans, University of Central Arkansas, Conway, Arkansas, USA. http://uca.edu/ncad

July 15-17, 2013 Australian University Community Engagement Alliance (AUCEA) National Conference: Next Steps, 10th annual, Melbourne, Australia. http://www.aucea.org.au/

July 15-17, 2013 International Professional Communication Conference (IPCC): Beyond Borders – Communicating Globally, sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Professional Communication Society, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. http://pcs.ieee.org/ipcc2013/

July 16-19, 2013 National Conference on Differentiated Instruction, sponsored by the Staff Development for Educators, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. http://www.sde.com/di2012/

July 16-19, 2013 Digital Humanities: Freedom to Explore, organized by the Association for Computers in Humanities, the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing, the Society for Digital Humanities and centerNet, hosted by the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. http://dh2013.unl.edu/

July 22-26, 2013 International Conference on Higher Education and Disability, 8th, organized by the University of Innsbruck and the University of New Orleans Training, Resource and Assistive-technology Center (USA), Innsbruck, Austria. http://trac.uno.edu/conf/about.cfm

July 25-27, 2013 International Conference on the Teaching of Psychology, 4th, biennial, co-hosted by Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Douglas College and Langara College, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. http://kwantlen.ca/ictp.html

July 25-27, 2013 Academic Affairs Summer Meeting, organized by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), Baltimore, Maryland, USA. http://www.aascu.org/MeetingsCalendar/

September 4-6, 2013 International Symposium on Information Management in a Changing World (IMCW): Beyond the Cloud – Information, Innovation, Collaboration, 4th, organized by Hacettepe University and the Limerick Institute of Technology, Strand Hotel, Limerick, Ireland. http://imcw2013.bilgiyonetimi.net/

September 17-19, 2013 Mathematics and Computers in Biology and Chemistry (MCBC), 14th, organized by World Scientific and Engineering Academy and Society (WSEAS), Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. http://www.wseas.org/wseas/cms.action

September 17-19, 2013 June 13-15, 2012 Mathematics and Computers in Business and Economics, (MCBE), 14th, organized by World Scientific and Engineering Academy and Society (WSEAS), Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. http://www.wseas.org/wseas/cms.action

September 20-23, 2013 World Congress on Educational Environments, sponsor by Council of Educational Facility Planners (CEFPI), Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. http://www.cefpi.org/

September 22-26, 2013 International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries: Sharing Meaningful Information, 17th, organized by the University of Malta, Valletta, Malta. http://www.tpdl2013.info/

September 23-26, 2013 International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD): Asian Values, Western Thought, World Treasure, 16th, organized by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDTD), University of Hong, Hong Kong, China. http://www.ndltd.org/ or http://lib.hku.hk/etd2013/about.html

September 26-27, 2013 European Foundation for Quality in e-Learning (EFQUEL) Innovation Forum: Learning for Open Innovation, Barcelona, Spain. http://efquel.org/

September 26-28, 2013 School Leadership Symposium (SLS): International Conference for School Effectiveness, School Improvement and School Management, University of Teacher Education of Central Switzerland, Zug, Switzerland. http://www.edulead.com/2013/information.php

September 29-October 3, 2013 World Conference on Science and Technology Education: Live Science, Love Learning, Create Change, sponsored by International Council of Associations for Science Education (ICASE), UNESCO, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), Borneo Convention Centre, Kuching City, Sarawak, Malaysia. http://worldste2013.org/

September ? 2013 International Conference on Internet Technologies and Applications, 5th, biennial. The conference will be held September 3-6, 2013 or September 10-13, 2013. Last held in 2011 at Glyndwr University, Wrexham, North Wales, UK. http://www.ita11.org/ or r.picking@glyndwr.ac.uk

October 2013

October 1-3, 2013 Asian Association of Open Universities: Leveraging the Power of Open and Distance Education for Building a Divergent Asia – Today’s Solutions and Tomorrow’s Vision, 27th annual, Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad, Pakistan. http://www.aaou.net/ or http://aaou2013.aiou.edu.pk/

October 21-25, 2013 E-Learn: World Conference on e-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education, organized by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. http://www.aace.org/conf/

October 27-30, 2013 STEMtech Conference: Emphasizing Student Success in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, organized by the League for Innovation in the Community College, Hyatt Regency Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. http://www.league.org/calendar.cfm

October 27-November 1, 2013 International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM), 22nd, sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), San Francisco, California, USA. http://www.cikm2013.org/

November 17-19, 2013 International Conference on Tourism and Economic Development, 1st, organized by the North Atlantic University Union (NAUN), Nanjing Forestry University, China. http://www.naun.org/

November ?, 2013 Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (PCF7), co-hosted by the Commonwealth of Learning, the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Education, and the National Open University of Nigeria, Abuja, Nigeria. http://www.col.org/progServ/panComm/Pages/pcf.aspx

December 2013

December 1-5, 2013 Learning Forward Annual Conference: Connect, Engage, Learn, Virtually, organized by the International Non-profit Association of Learning Educators ((formerly known as the National Staff Development Council – NSDC), Boston, Massachusetts, USA. http://www.learningforward.org/default.aspx

March ?, 2014 International Conference on Teaching and Learning with Technology (iCTLT), 4th biennial, organized by the Singapore Ministry of Education and the Academy of Principals. The last conference was held March 27-30, 2012. Singapore. http://www.ictlt.com/

April ? 2014 International Conference on Networked Learning, 9th, biennial. The 8th conference was held April 2-4, 2012 and hosted by the Open University of the Netherlands, Maastricht, The Netherlands. http://www.networkedlearningconference.org.uk/

May ? 2014 World Federation of Colleges and Polytechnics (WFCP) World Congress, biennial. The last congress was held May 26-29, 2012 and hosted by the Association of Canadian Community College and Nova Scotia Community College, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The 2014 Congress will be held in Beijing, China and hosted by the China Education Association for International Education (CEAIE) in Beijing China. http://wfcp.org/wfcp-congresses/

May ? 2014 World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT). The 18th, conference was held May 21-24, 2012 and organized by the World information Technology and Services Alliance in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The 2014 conference will be held in Mexico. http://www.wcit2012.org/

May ? 2014 International Conference on Higher Education: Knowledge Crossing Borders, biennial conference. The previous conference was co-organized by West Chester University and the Universidad Nacional, Heredia, Cost Rica between May 29-June 3, 2012 at West Chester University, West Chester, Pennsylvania, USA. http://www.wcupa.edu/KnowledgeCrossingBorders/

June 16-18, 2014 International Consortium for Educational Development (ICED) Conference, biennial, organized by the Swedish Network for Educational Development in Higher Education (Swednet), Stockholm, Sweden. http://icedonline.net/

June ? 2014 World Congress of University Presidents, Rectors and Vice-Chancellors, 17th triennial. The 16th conference was held June 17-20, 2011 in New York City, New York, USA. http://www.bcdmionline.com/IAUP/index.htm

June ? 2014 International Conference on Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication, biennial. Last held June 18-20, 2012 in Aarhus, Denmark. http://www.catacconference.org/

June ? 2014 Science and Mathematics Education Conference: Teaching at the Heart of Learning, biennial. Previous conference was held June 7-9, 2012 at Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland. http://www4.dcu.ie/smec/2012/index.shtml

June ? 2014 Libraries in the Digital Age (LIDA), biennial. Last held June 18-22, 2012 in Zadar, Croatia. http://ozk.unizd.hr/lida/

July ? 2014 International Workshop-Conference on Teaching Philosophy (IWCTP), 20th biennial, sponsored by the American Association of Philosophy Teachers (AAPT). The 19th conference was held July 25-29, 2012 at St. Edward’s University, Austin, Texas, USA. http://philosophyteachers.org/

August 2014

August 10-14, 2014 Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, SIGGRAPH 2014, 41st, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. http://www.siggraph.org/events

September ? 2014 Thinking Approach Teachers Conference 2nd. The first conference was held September 14-15, 2012 with the sub-title Bringing Creativity and Thinking Skills into the Educational Process, Riga, Latvia. http://ta-teachers.eu/

About Me

Dr. Tony Karrer works as a part-time CTO for startups and midsize software companies - helping them get product out the door and turn around technology issues. He is considered one of the top technologists in eLearning and is known for working with numerous startups including being the original CTO for eHarmony for its first four years. Dr. Karrer taught Computer Science for eleven years. He has also worked on projects for many Fortune 500 companies including Credit
Suisse, Royal Bank of Canada, Citibank, Lexus, Microsoft, Nissan,
Universal, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Fidelity
Investments, Symbol Technologies and SHL Systemhouse. Dr. Karrer was
valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University
of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30
engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer
Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.